


Changes

by k_itt



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Battle of Hogwarts, F/M, Non-Explicit, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-23 13:48:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16160162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/k_itt/pseuds/k_itt
Summary: Draco collected guitars while Ginny collected postcards.





	1. Chapter 1

War. 

To many, it was over. To many, it would never end. The war inside ones heart; for the ones they’ve lost, for the scars in one’s heart, for the memories that would never fade and the nightmares replaying in one’s head, over and over. 

Ginny would most of the time pretend that it was fine, that it was over. Except for those nights she was alone, Harry out on duty and none of her quidditch team mates to share a room. Those nights when she was alone, left to fight oh so much memories from all the pain, from nights recluse in a room shared with way too many schoolmates, healing each other’s wounds, both from heart and blooded bodies. Memories from nights spent awake, always waiting for a goddamn sign or a goddamn note, just to know that everyone was alive and safe. Memories from the worse day of her life. Of everybody’s life. Memories from friends she would never meet again and Fred. Fred. 

“It’s over, Ginny!”

Yes. It was. But not the war, as Harry repeated so much she lost track on counting. She couldn’t pretend anymore. She couldn’t pretend she was fine when she was not. She had to be strong, they sad, and she was. She has been strong for everybody around her. Her mom, her dad, Harry, Charles, Ron, Percy, Mione… Bill had always been her safe zone. She could always run to him and let herself cry, relentless. And George, oh George… They’ve cried their hearts out together too many times, when no one was around, only to put their strong masks on again, once they were not alone any longer.

“It’s over, Harry.”

And it was. And this time she was done pretending. She was done faking herself a smile as she posed beside the Boy Who Lived - twice. And she would always love him for that and so many other reasons. But she couldn’t pretend anymore that she was alive inside, when she was not.

 

It was hard in the beginning, being all by herself. Except that that’s what she wanted. What she needed. And when there wasn’t practice to fill in her days, she would switch days over nights, and nights over days where she would be left alone. Alone.

Luna and Hermione were the firsts to knock on her door, wine and pie in hands and a pile of what looked like a bunch of muggle movies, but she would never know as she watched them from afar, as her dearest friends tried to cheer her through an empty door, herself sitting alone on the grass by a tree near home. 

Home. It took months for it to be called a home, in Hermione’s eyes and for that, the girl had a point. It was one of those Monday lunches at the Burrow and Arthur had finally put to test his newly amended muggle camera that Harry gave him last Christmas. The picture stood still most of the time, but eventually its characters would move just slightly, randomly and unsynchronized. She had offered to take the picture that would now decorate her fireplace. In the white frame, Bill would blink for Fleur as Victorie stretched her little arms for her dad to catch her. Angelina rested her head at George’s shoulders and there it was, his always boyish smug, back on his wounded face. Arthur and Molly’s smiles would soften a little as they clearly watched over the person hidden by the camera. Harry’s smile beside them never seemed so understanding and that calmed Ginny’s heart more than it ever did, while Mione would giggle as Ron proud face made him look more than guilty. He was probably tickling her waist from behind. They would have to take another one of those, with Percy and Audrey and Charlie and maybe, maybe even herself. 

“Took you long enough”. Hermione said one night almost a year after Ginny’s moved in, as she stepped out of the white slim fireplace at Ginny’s flat, finally connect to the Floo, a gentle smile as she turned over and spotted the first personal object in the whole place. 

“Yeah, but don’t assume it will always be open. I need my privacy and you know mom.” 

Ginny’s new flat was in the muggle part of the city, as far as she could get from gossip eyes and mouths and too many family members and memories that still made her heart crumbles at night. It was not that she didn’t love them, cause that she did with all that was left in her heart. But she had to find herself a place her own, in her own heart. A place without so many tears and regrets and what ifs. 

Her flat lacked of decoration. A table set for four by the wall, brown couch for three, if you squeezed, by the window, white walls and white shelves over a white fireplace next to the kitchen‘s counter and two doors. Yellow door and white door, both led to her most intimate places. White door to her white bedroom, like a canvas, while yellow led to the yellow streetlights that played her company most of those sleepless nights. 

The same yellow nights that flicked around her head as she walked outside some muggle coffeehouse near her place and soft chords and soft voice lingered in her ears, too far for her to properly comprehend, too soft to fit her aching heart, but too calming to make her leave just yet. So she would seat by a tree and watch her own window from apart. The same way she did those times her friends knocked on empty doors or Harry went by and left without knocking, the same way she would do, more often than not, and more often than not those chords would mend her heart, far and unknowing. 

The first time she heard the anonymous street player she had moved in to the neighborhood two months earlier and by now, he would keep her company every Tuesday and Thursday nights, although it had begun on Wednesdays. She had never seen his face, never able to step closer to properly hear this voice that kept her heart at ease at night, at least for some time. All it would take her was to take a turn on the corner and this voice would be able to fulfill her ears and eyes. She could see the shadow of a young man with a guitar sitting by an old brick wall when she turned her head while sitting by her spot under the tree, but she rather had it like this: faceless and kind. 

It took her a whole year after moving in to look left, to the other side of the street and finally and unconsciously follow that disembodied voice.

Wrapped up in her autumn coat she stood by the corner, watching, lingering as she studied him. Brown and green knit sweater, old washed jeans, guitar on his lap but no hats by his feet as it was expected. People would sometime stop and he would smile before lowering his head, softly turning the corner of his lips as he never lost a tune, but greeted and thanked those around, wanting nothing but that in return. And so she stared.

Stared like she was trapped by that smile and something by that dirty blond hair and the slim white figure made her heart throb inside its ribcage. It hurt at first, that smile, unintendedly sending her back to times where pain and worrying was an all-day companion, but there was something sweet and bitter, joyful and wounded in that same smile that took her home. Home. In her own heart for the first time in oh so long she would not be able to tell. 

And then he spotted her. Grey-blue eyes that talked too much and had bear too much. So much more than that smile that suited the unknown figure so much, but not his figure. At the same way, it did. Cause it filled that smile perfectly. And then the voice and those chords stopped, just like her heart, only to beat again as he strummed the guitar, lowering once again his head with no sign of a smile in his face.

 

Ginny didn’t know what kind of unspoken talk happened between them when she caught herself back inside that same old coffee shop, Draco Malfoy, out of all people, sitting on the chair across the table. 

“It was you all this time.” His voice cut thought the silence and the wave of thoughts inside her head. So it was him all this time. The voice calming her heart for so many nights was one of the same voices that played inside her nightmares. Except it wasn’t. There was something different in his voice and for a moment she thought she have seen it, that difference, both in that smile on the street and the voice that filled her ears. 

“What?”

“You’re not deaf, Weasley.”

That. The brat. She sighed. It was him all this the time and she could only roll her eyes and sip through her coffee as she questioned her own sanity. Having a coffee with Draco Malfoy. She couldn’t be sane. 

“What do you mean it was me all the time?” 

“The girl by the tree.” 

Her eyes more than studied him as she tried to find the pieces for this puzzle that played inside her head, filled by the man across the table. How could it be him. How could the same person sitting in front of her be both the insufferable boy from her childhood, not to mention everything else, and the owner of the only voice able to mend her heart, even if the slightest bit, during all those months. How could be, rich and stubborn Malfoy, be the same guy with the sweet smile and sweet voice and sweet chords, sitting by the wall on a street, looking no more than a boy next-door. 

“Why are you playing on the streets?”

“Why do you care for?”

“It doesn’t fit. You.” She frowned.

He chuckled, averting her eyes. But they were soon back on hers and what she saw in his eyes was not the same boy she met back in Hogwarts. She saw hurt and bitter, but saw the sadness and something else. Something she couldn’t tell. She had to find the pieces for this puzzle.

“I know you’ve been hearing me for a while know. I only didn’t know it was you.”

“So we’re even. But you didn’t answer my question. Why?”

“Well, I like playing, by myself. And I like both playing and being by myself, besides, I can play whenever I want. ” Draco shrugged, but the careless in his words never meet his eyes. Careful eyes, too soft to fit that face she knew too well from years of bullying and rage inside school yards and stoned corridors. 

“On the streets? You’re not alone when you’re playing on-” 

And then it made sense. “You play on the streets cause you can be by yourself, but you’re not alone.” 

Alone, cause yes, Draco probably lived alone. Lucius Malfoy was sent to Azkaban, right after the war, but nothing really happened to Draco nor Narcissa Malfoy as Harry spoke for them in court. Harry would be probably dead if she hadn’t lied at that time, whatever reason took her heart to. And Draco, well, he was a kid, after all, when it all started. Ginny did read, she didn’t remember where nor when, that Narcissa Malfoy had retired herself somewhere in France, while Draco seemed to vanish from everyone sight, until now. 

“Isn’t it the same when you lay by a tree, alone, but not by yourself because you’re probably overthinking?”

The silence that filled the space between them held too much truth and too much understanding for two too different people, maybe not that different after all.

“We have our own reasons.”

And for that, he smiled. And her heart throbbed in chest as the corner of his lips outstretched with the same sweetness he displayed for strangers on the street and more, only shyer, and filled with some kind of understanding. 

 

Next Tuesday, she had dinner with a friend at Diagon Alley.


	2. Chapter 2

On Thursday Ginny stopped by the same coffee shop, ordered the same black coffee and the same cinnamon bagel and the same of soup of the day, only this time it was some flavor she had never tasted before, before leading to her spot by the tree. Only this time that same voice and chords that made her company over night wasn’t there. 

It didn’t matter, only that it did and she sighed before taking a sit, the sound of cars and distant talking buzzing through her ears before she spotted him. Guitar on his hands, Draco walked in her direction but stopped only a few feet away from her near a bench. He looked around and she knew he’d seen her, but didn’t look back as he took a seat, back towards her, and stared playing.

Ginny laughed. And that night she didn’t felt the need to be left alone as she watched Draco play his guitar while singing sweet songs and looney tunes she was too familiar with after hearing them so many times from afar. The same tunes she had never been able to truly comprehend. 

They both left about an hour later, a small nod from his part being the only sign that he indeed, knowledge her presence. 

Next week Draco came in every day. And so did she. 

Their silent agreement worked for weeks. How many, Ginny didn’t know. All he knew was she enjoyed that kind of not really silent company and her mid would not be so tired and her chest not as heavy as it had been when she finally rested her head on her bed latter at night. She slept dreamless dreams most of those nights. 

“You seem different. More… Relaxed…” Mione had told her once over one Sunday lunch at the Burrow. And maybe she was right, except Hermione was always right. 

That Monday Ginny didn’t show up. She had a nightmare that night, of giant snakes and blood and a goddamn diary. The diary Malfoy, well, Lucius Malfoy, carefully tossed inside her cauldron so many years ago. Ginny didn’t show up for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday evening, before dinner at the coffee house, she was sitting by the brown sofa over the window in her finally decorated flat, if one could call flowery cushions and a small vase over the table some kind of proper decoration. But Hermione did and she smiled at her friend who came over every week with a book to fill those empty shelves. Ginny would probably never read most of them. 

“Who’s that?” Hermione asked, staring through the glass and Ginny’s heart jumped at the now too familiar slim back and blond hair sitting on the bench right under her apartment window. 

“I don’t know.” She lied. But she spent the rest of the night sitting by the window as she heard Draco play somewhat sad songs until it was too cold at night for someone to be alone on the streets. 

Draco didn’t showed up for the rest of the week.

It had passed another couple of weeks before Ginny spotted that same figure on a Tuesday by the bench across the street. The same bench in front of her spot by the tree, but this time, she took the empty space beside him. 

“Is that where you live.” He asked, only it didn’t look like a question as he lift chin up to her now dark window, his voice slightly lower than when he was singing but he kept strumming on his guitar to a perfect rhythm. 

“Spying on me, Malfoy?”

“It was not that hard to figure out, you know.” The slight playful tone still didn’t suit that person she knew for years, not when it was gentle, especially if directed to her. But if fitted too perfectly the tender guy playing guitar on the streets. “I saw Granger coming up the other night.”

Right. She chuckled. No one could have changed so much, she thought. But he didn’t, she also thought. And once again, time went by as she watched blinking lights on windows across the street, listening to songs sung by that same guy, sitting right beside her, to the cold autumn wind.

“It’s cold.” He stopped, not looking at her. 

“Let’s go for a coffee.” 

Ginny once again couldn’t tell what led her to it. Sit on a table across Draco Malfoy over a cup of coffee. Her table, this time. The same one with the small vase and a single red flower, between yellow and white doors. 

“Nice place.” He said.

“You changed your hair.” She stated.

“It’s easier to be left alone when people won’t recognize you so easily from afar.” And for that she smiled. Guilty sprawled all over her face as she looked outside to the muggle London outside her window. Not only she was Ginevra Weasley, “the girl who broke The Chosen One’s heart”, she was also Ginny Weasley, “the quidditch promise chaser of the season”. Muggles couldn't care less about quidditch or a war that was not theirs.

“What have you been to, after the war?”

Draco took a sip over his coffee and she knew he was studying her. Bright eyes checking on her features and looking for facades and jokes and accusing fingers, but she wear none of that. “Would you believe if I told you I’ve been playing music on the streets?”

“Not if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes. What happened? I mean- You’re Draco Malfoy. A Malfoy.”

“Exactly.”

It was already past midnight and Ginny had discovery that Draco had lived in too many cities since the war. That Budapest has the perfect sunrise, while Prague was the best for sunsets and coffees on street. That the Italians played the best companions when it comes for drinking with strangers and that New York lights, with the right amount of drinks, would be the perfect high, especially if you were a street musician. People would stop and sing and dance and cheer, before they left, not bothering to judge at all. She learned that Draco now lived two blocks down across the street and hated Tuesdays and Thursdays the most, for he had mandatory seminal business meetings with people he could care less, except for the fact they kept his family business running. She learned that despite all the prejudice Lucius Malfoy had, and maybe still have, against muggle, it was from muggle’s business they kept the fortune growing these days, after the war. Narcissa took care of the Magical business from Lisbon, not France.

She also learned Draco smiles tenderly when talking about his mother and openly when it came to quidditch.

“I have always been educated in music. Both in the piano and the guitar. Dad always wanted me to go for the cello, but I had a reputation in Hogwarts to care for.” He said. Draco always liked music, but times had become darker inside his house, maybe sooner than it had for most of the students, maybe except for Harry. He didn’t like to talk about it. 

She learned that yes, he changed, but that bluntness in his tongue had never left and it rivaled her own. He would still sound bitter some times, but the sweetness in his songs when when he sung or either when he smiled was something new even to him and this freshness fitted the puzzle that she slowly solved inside her head. 

When he left, she didn’t sleep that night, replaying everything that happened over had last year, but not once those hunted memories from a dark and hurting past.


	3. Chapter 3

It snowed on Thursday and Ginny stayed warm inside her flat, sitting by the fireplace on her new black armchair. 

“Guess who I’ve met the other day on the streets?” Hermione carefully filled her fridge with leftovers from a lunch with Molly and Ron at the Burrow. Her mom would always cook for a full set, even if it was only the three of them, Arthur busy at the Ministry that day. “Draco Malfoy.”

She stood from her seat to check outside the window to the empty bench across the street, near her tree. He wouldn’t show up on weather like this, of course. She sighed. 

“He looked different. I mean. He changed his hair color, he’s not that blond anymore, but… I don’t know. There’s something different around him. He almost seemed… nice.” Ginny chuckle, too understanding, but Mione didn’t understand that. “I know, right? He just nodded towards me and I think, no, I’m pretty sure of that. He almost smiled. Can you believe that?”

“Maybe he changed. People change, Mione.”

“Like you?”

 

Ginny did change. She first changed over the school years, first the diary, then Harry, then not for Harry and then, the war. The war changed everything. Then she changed once again a year ago when she broke up with Harry and that change, she needed. They were still friends and they slowly figured they worked better this way. No pressure from old promises and old dreams that changed over years, over war and over so many losses. She couldn’t lose him once more, yet they lost themselves with so many changes going on both inside and around them.   
And she finally saw herself changing once more as the weather became colder and she slowly became warmer inside her heart. As nightmares and sleepless nights were no longer a common buddy and became less and less frequent inside her not so white bedroom anymore. Harpies new poster took place right above her head, waving and smiling cheerfully on the wall. It made her happy before she’d drift in sleep, echoes from sweet melodies taking on her thoughts and guiding her dreams.

When Hermione left it was easy to find that same blonde hair they’ve just talked about emerging from the shadows of the tree. Her tree. She couldn’t help but smile to the warm that filled her chest and apartment, at least before she opened her window. 

“I’ll make coffee.” She didn’t have to yell at the silent street and soon enough her living room was filled with songs and that singing voice she admitted she became so fond of. 

“That’s my favorite.” 

Draco smiled but didn’t stop playing as a mug of Irish coffee was set beside him, made with firewhiskey, instead of muggle whiskey. He didn’t know if she was talking about the song or the hot beverage, but somehow it seemed it suited both. And it did. 

Draco left only by the sunrise, somewhat tipsy, just as Ginny. 

That night she found out it was easier to talk to Draco than she had ever imagined, even after their last encounter. She leaned he had too many regrets and that too many sorrow filled his memories from Hogwarts. That dad would “always be dad”, but never the dad he wanted him to truly be. That he loved his mom the most and Vincent Crabble death still hunted his dreams and despite what it may have seemed, he did felt for Fred. “Your brother was always cleaver. I like that.” And it shocked her the same time it didn’t. Everybody likes Forge. He even phone-ordered Wheeze’s stuff once by the name of Bowman Wright, the inventor of the golden snitch. He received a bonus Bruise Removal Paste as bonus item. 

She discovered he composed some of the songs he played and that he’d never play for money. It would make it fail on its purpose. She told him she asked herself too many times why was she sorted on Gryffindor, after the incident with Tom Riddle’s diary, and he truly surprised her when he apologized for that. He spent way too many time around said man, if one could call him that, and the sadness in his eyes met the ache inside her chest. They were not that different after all. 

She then got to know he would never miss a Puddlemore United’s game and he thought her as “not that bad” of a chaser but a “better player than Potter”. She also found out that no, he didn’t hate Harry, but also, no, he was not that fond of him either. He had towards Dolores Umbridge the same amount of empathy he had for his aunt Bellatrix Lestrange and he would not miss her at all. She learned he hated apple strudel, but was very keen of custard tart and that toffee was his favorite Every Flavor Bean, while he once threw up after a having a Vomit Bean when he was kid.

They’ve spent most of the night talking and what she learned about him, he learned about her. That Rita Skeeter was the person she now hated the most for too many stories she tossed around, coming right out of nowhere, as they were never true. And if they were, they were so distorted and so tendentious that would became untruthful. She told him, over her third drink, she indeed felt proud of her bat-bogey hex, for which he rolled his eyes and strummed randomly on his guitar as a reprimand, being once in the receiving end of it. And when they laughed, her smile was as open as his.

When he knocked on her door on Tuesday, next week, she wasn’t surprised at all. On Thursday, the coffee had already been made. 

They spoke about Filch and muggle magic. About scars and tattoos and colored hairs. She talked about team mates while he talked about the strange guy on his building who talked to cats. She learned they liked the same muggle beer and hated fennel, while he loved winter and she could never have enough summer. 

“You’d love winter in Prague. Everybody does.” He told her from her leather armchair, guitar on his lap and he sung about lights and red bricks and grey walls.   
“Why so many?” She asked about his different guitars. Draco would always show up in some kind of plain jeans, dark sweater, and a different guitar. Green suited him nicely, as the dark green sweater he wore that night under the black coat. They matched. Except her green sweater had shades of gold with a “Holyhead Harpies” embellishing its front. But her favorite color on him was definitely blue.   
“I buy a new one every time I travel.”

He bought a new one next week. He spent Christmas alone somewhere up on the north. Helsinki, Finland, she learned from the postcard he sent her by muggle mail. 

She received one new postcard a week for the next two months, each one from a different city. Draco had collected nine new guitars, she learned.


	4. Chapter 4

“They’re beautiful. It’s Beautiful!” Yes, Hermione was right.

Ginny smiled, quite pleased with herself at the nine frames on her bedroom wall. Nine different shapes and nine different colors she bought from nine different stores. Each one of them holding a different postcard, from a different city she had never been to.

“Who’ve sent those?”

“Someone.” She smiled tenderly and chucked under Hermione curious gaze. 

By the end of February, she spent most of her time practicing quidditch for the upcoming season and that would include traveling so they could play friendly matches beforehand. She collected postcards she never sent.

It has been over three months since she’d last seem him.

It was on a Wednesday on March, right after returning home from an oversea game that she finally saw him. Dark-blue rolled up sleeve shirt, too matching with his eyes, black dark jeans and dark mark showing up as some badass tattoo, only it was not. But them he smiled and her heart stopped, skipping a beat, and she giggled, joining him by the coffee shop. 

On Thursday they met at his flat. Light-grey walls adorned with fine art on carefully chosen frames enclosed the large space that served both as living, dining and cooking. It had no table, but the white marble island would comfortably sit four. There was no fireplace and green cushions on the black couch matched everything perfectly. 

He could not cook, but the Italian diner by the street had the best Alfredo pasta he had ever had. He had ordered a takeout. And wine. But Ginny was never really the wine type so they changed it for beer and the drink felt cold and fresh and bitter as it slipped easily through her mouth before it tasted too sweet on his lips. 

They were laughing over a twisted joke George pranked on Ron last Christmas when he kissed her. Draco liked Gred as he liked Forge and pranks. And Ron… Well, he was Potter’s best friend. 

Ginny was holding her beer, elbows on the counter and forgotten dinner left aside while Draco sited turned towards her, sipping over his own bottle as he watched her, laughing with her over stories from sharing a room with wild team mates and an over packed Christmas table. Then he kissed her. Soft lips over swollen ones as Ginny never got rid of that old bad habit of biting her lips. Draco’s lips was as sweet as his voice when he sung, but the newly bought guitars she went over for became only flashes in her eyes as she opened them between kisses on their way to bed. His bed. 

She would probably never be able to tell what kind of sorcery happened between them as she caught herself in some unexpected place with him, again. The corner of that street, the muggle coffee shop, her home, his bed. Honestly, she wouldn’t care. His mouth on hers and hands exploring more than words have ever had. She could feel the scars on his back, on his chest under her fingers before she saw them with her own eyes, his black bottom shirt tossed wherever out of his bed. It could be a scary sign for a stranger, but so were her owns. They all had them, the scars, after the war.

They’ve stared each other’s briefly as shirts and pants were discarded, studying and silently understanding each of those marks before brown eyes met blue eyes and soon mouth met mouth in some kind if new found hunger. When Draco kissed the mark across her ribs, skin oh so very sensitive under those scars, she knew she was trapped. Trapped, but she didn’t want to leave. 

Having sex with Draco was both mindfulness and mind blowing. He would tease until she was almost in state of begging, but them he would give her, fill her, mind and body with too many sensations at once. Gentle touches would make her head float, but firmly hands and toned arms would bring her back to earth, to bed. Draco’s bed. It was all too good, and yes, it was true.

Ginny never thought Draco would be the type who cuddled and he wasn’t. Over heavy breaths and a lazy smile he unhid his face from the crotch of her neck and he kissed her before landing heavily beside her. She already missed his body, hot over hers and she sigh, closing her eyes.

“I have practice early tomorrow.” She told him and when she looked, there it was, that same smile that kept her stoned in place by the corner of that street as he played his guitar for strangers, wanting nothing but carefreeness in return. 

“You can come back later. I never showed you my new guitars.”

And she did. 

Draco had his guitars all over the place. She had seen at least two of them, old ones, on the living room the night before. He had other five on the wall above his bed and more five on a stand by the corner opposite to the tall window frame. Nine new guitars, of different kinds and different shapes and different colors adorned the wall on the hall. 

“They’re beautiful.” She laughed. “Play the blue one for me.”

Draco lips on her neck brought shivers down her spine and yesterday’s hunger was replaced for today’s wants as messed bodies tangled over messed sheets and soft breath fulfilled the room. They moved slowly, as the tune he played the first time she invited him over her home, and this time, mouths explored more than hands and eyes and the only words heard were muffled, huffed breaths. 

He did play for her that night. Dark silk sheets covering her freckled body as she watched him, listening. His pale skin made the blue painted wood stood out by his chest as he sung her favorite song. The same one she told him over Irish coffee. 

Draco was really a puzzle and the more she get to know him, the more he gave her bits of his strange personality, the more she saw herself in someone so strange, so challenging and so willing to change. Someone who already changed. And so did she. She wasn’t naïve, and maybe had never been since young age, since her first year at Hogwarts, since she met Tom. Since then she was never naïve to believe someone were that absolutely good or that horrendously bad. She couldn’t believe in precepts like that, like good or evil. Everybody had both sides. It is what you do with them that matters. But most of all, she believes in changes. 

She changed. Draco changed. 

He hid himself from the wizarding world most of the time, knowing too well he would never be welcomed anymore. Not by anyone. And there she was, welcoming him in her life, as the sweet songs she heard on the streets. They’ve certainly changed


	5. Chapter 5

First game of the season was no less them Holyhead Harpies versus Puddlemore United. Oh the irony. The match was thought. Eight long hours, too many fouls, and more than so many hundred points latter, Puddlemore’s seeker had caught the Snitch making the final score a 180 x 290. The Harpies had lost, but Ginny was chosen the player of the match after dogging an almost perfect Boddy Blow and hitting an amazing score. Besides, she saw him. 

It was by the end of the game, match paused over another broken bone. Nothing too bad they couldn’t heal quickly enough to get their seeker back on game. Draco was sitting by the Puddlemore’s side of the stands and she couldn’t help but tease on a little bit at her rival’s team crowd, performing some skilled moves on her broom. 

“You know. Sometimes I forget you’re a Griffindor. Such a showoff.” He shook his head as he greeted her next Sunday evening by her door, guitar on his back and a playful grin she was not used yet. At least not like that. But she liked it nonetheless. She kissed him on her living room, rough and careless, but caring too much as he wrapped his arms around her slim wait and her fingers lost themselves in his hair. 

He played guitar for her later that night as he stared at colored frames in front of her bed, smiling as gentle and sweet as the his voice while he sung, one song for each city before he told her stories about both muggle and wizarding, people and places, sunrises and sunsets and guitars. Next morning she woke up to banana pancakes, his one and only specialty. She had learned some time ago that Draco never worked on Mondays, but he actually did every other day of the week. Perks of being the son of business owners and he had always been spoiled. They spent the rest of day in her bed.

“Come on, who is he?” Mione cheerfully asked as she lifted a clearly masculine black sweater forgotten over her black armchair. “Is he some hot handsome from quidditch?”

“Well… He’s hot. And Handsome.” She had to admit it. “And he likes quiddtch.”

They wouldn’t believe her if she told them. 

Bill had always been her safe zone, she knew. But this time she rested her head over Charlie’s shoulder as he played a quick visit home. They were sitting together in a couch at the Burrow. 

“I’ve met someone. They will not like.” She knew and he understood her somewhat as they watched their parents and siblings being as loud as always in the next room.

“They might surprise you.” Charlie might be right.

Quidditch had been hard on her for the next month and when season break was announced she more than welcomed the small vacation. 

She’d never seen Draco play the piano before. They have travelled together for the first time on her holidays before summer, somewhere where she would enjoy the weather and he wouldn’t melt over the heat, and that’s how they ended up in Greece. The small villa-like hotel had an old black grand piano right on the middle of its main hall and they were back from dinner in a cozy restaurant nearby when he offered her another bite of his aura. 

The notes he carefully played over black and white ivory tiles filled not only her ears, not only her heart, but the whole air around him. He looked solemn at first, but slowly he’d softened, just as the sound emerging from the instrument, echoing thought the heavy white walls. When he looked at her he smiled, and the soft tunes become somewhat brighter as fingers slid, dancing over keys oh so perfectly. 

And in a minute that old magic has been made as she found herself somewhere different than the last place she remembered been, silence talk and silence agreement happening between them, as she somehow lost track of time. It really looked like a crazy time lapse. She pushed him over white mattress, matching his white shirt and brown short jeans. He definitely changed. And so did her. Her blue dress was left on the floor near large glass doors that led to a small balcony, white curtains swaying in the wind as she approached him, eyes never leaving eyes before they kissed. 

Lips and hands and eyes explored places now well-known as it was a first time. It was always a first with Draco, either in bed or somewhere else. She soon learned that Draco could be a sweet talker, as much as he would be a sweet with his guitar on his hands. Except the sweet never really suited him as he had so many layers, many still craving for her to be discovered. As she would, eventually, one by one, no hurries, no pressure. She would take her time. Their time.

He brought his new guitar from a guy playing on the streets. She had pointed him out how cool was it with so many colors and paints. It was a canvas filled with memories, like the canvas that would soon fill up a wall back at home, for every time she collect a new post card from her travels or his travels. The ones they bought together she would place on her fridge so she could look at them and smile, every other time of the day. 

They’ve spent Christmas that year in Prague. He was right, she loved it. They would stop a few minutes every day of their trip so they could watch the sunset and Ginny thought she would never get tired of seeing it. Just like she would never get tired of the way he’d smiled before their lips met, oh so tender and oh so good as they sat on the edge of a bridge on the street.

She sent home a postcard for the sake of her mom. She never told them who the hell her mysterious boyfriend was, but the D.M. alongside her G.W. by the end of Christmas whishes would be more than enough for them to know expertly who he was. Hermione would be there. She would deal latter with further clarifications as for now they should leave to sunrises on Budapest. 

They watched most of them from the bed in Draco’s favorite retreat. Their naked bodies under thick sheets as they stared to the sky though the large bay window, sitting on his bed, their bed, his long pale arms around her waist as they cuddled. They’ve changed so much. 

“I love you, you know?” 

This time her heart didn’t skip a beat as it had never beat faster, warmer inside her chest, in her whole life. His lean nose ghosting on her slim shoulders, her hands drawing imaginary patters on his arms and she smiled. Wide. 

“I know.” And she did.

She raised her hand up to his neck, fingers finding its way through blond hair and that playful smile she so fondly grew up to like when sent towards her. For that her heart skip a beat and she leaned closer, lips over lips and brown eyes over blue eyes as she whispered.

“I love you, Draco Malfoy”. Cause she did. 

She loved the guy from the street, the one with sweet chords and soft tunes and light voice. She loved Malfoy and his bitter tongue and unique humor and hurt from painful memories. And she loved Draco for all the changes and all those layers and pieces of a perfectly broken puzzle she would never fully solve, as its bits would change a little every day, as so did she. 

Ginny loved him. Draco Malfoy, out of all people, because he was Draco Malfoy, out of all people.


End file.
